SUCCESSES AND LIMITATIONS OF SOME CUCURBIT RELEASES IN QUEENSLAND

Successful varieties are satisfying to the consumer and profitable to the producer. They can be considered as a combination of attributes that contribute to the costs (production, harvesting and transport to markets), the identification, and the prices (purchase, repeat purchases) of the supply-demand cycle. The most effective combination and levels of attributes changes as the environment changes. Cultivars need continually to be created to ensure the genetic base of an industry is suitably adapted to present and future environments. The success of cucurbit varieties ‘Redlands Long White’ (RLW) cucumber, ‘Redlands Trailblazer’ (RTB), ‘Dulong QHI’ (DQ) and ‘Sunset QHI’ (SQ) pumpkins are considered under this model. In the local environment successful RLW met consumer needs, SQ satisfied consumer needs and the improved productivity and reduced costs met producer needs, while RTB and DQ were not sufficiently adapted to changed local market and production environments soon after release.